It was a total nightmare. First of all, Josh organised this whole
"Show and Tell" (Tuesdays, 7.30) thing right before, so instead of limbering
up for proper consensus and correct producedure, everyone sat around looking
at Mike's ingenious elevator light LED hack and how he planned it, and
a new kind of logic analyser that's
basically just six wires and a USB connector, and some routers(?). Then they
all discussed the hacks they were working on, and some ideas they were mulling,
and sought out advice and shared knowledge with their peers.

It was unfortunately so "interesting" that by the time anyone wanted to stop,
it was 8.20 already so basically we'd already screwed up the whole rules and
procedures of the meeting. Nice job, Josh. _Real_ smooth.

I kept waiting for someone to sue us for this, but they didn't.

Then I tried to get Dr Jesus to head the meeting, because he
looks like a natural leader, doesn't he? But he was too busy talking to
Gian Pablo about how to repair the Makerbot, and seemed almost happy
at shirking his genetic responsibilities.

By 8.30pm I realised that I was going to have to head the meeting
"do-acratically" myself before our previously finely-tuned decision-making
process descended into unmanageable chaos.

I went and got the member binder and started noisily flicking through it, which
I thought would at least shut people up. Finally I worked out how to get the
projector screen to come down, but couldn't get the video to work. That
attracted a few people's attention who "wanted to help me".

UNFORTUNATELY, just when I was getting to bit where I explain to everyone what
Noisebridge is, our code of honor, how to get here if you're not here already
etc, Miloh started being disruptive and un-excellent and said "Hey, everyone
knows this stuff here, right?.

As moderator, I quickly established consensus through a show of hands that
everyone indeed knew this stuff.

Miloh then proposed that instead of doing the usual meeting procedure, we
should have a guided tour of the space, revealing secrets that many people did
not know, even members.

Before I had a chance to even THINK of blocking, everyone bloody consensed on
this too.

Look, can I at least read out the binder names? I whined, correctly.

But it was too late, everyone was following Miloh around to see the electronics
lab and heard a bunch of so called "secret knowledge" like what a Hell Box is,
where you can find Quagga, how easy it would be to program the life-playing Big
LED sign to do other stuff, how to get an account on pony, how cool the $500
de-solderer is, how to use John's new flat storage area in the FabLab, how you
should put empty bottles by the third sink because we're going to be making a
load of Kambucha, pondered on whether we should keep the shrink-wrap machine,
learned the secret Masonic History of 2169 Mission, and the true origin of some
of Noisebridge's most famous smells.

I tried writing all of this down, but our meeting notes don't even have a
category for stuff like this. I therefore ruled myself out of order and deleted
it.

I did scribble down everyone's names though, as per procedure, and for
purposes of future prosecution. If you want to know these secrets, which go
against every principle of openness Noisebridge stands for, you could ask [[
User:Jack|Jack]], Miloh of course, and Carl. Gescykae and John
Neurofog were also troublemaking (both of whom don't even have User pages yet,
which is I believe a violation of our lease).

Treasurer Kelly wasn't around, because if she had been, I'm sure this mess-up could NOT HAVE HAPPENED.

Hey guys! I was busy flying into Oakland from Alaska at meeting time. Glad to see the usual chaos ensued without my help. Our aggregate bank balance is $18,118.39. In December, Noisebridge took in $4,360 in dues and $5,675.60 in donations. Way up from a couple months ago! Next week I will have a full report on 4Q10, and we will be discussing our tax receipt backlog as well as looking at new accounting software options.--Hurtstotouchfire 20:03, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

No new members, but a bunch of people getting close. Chandra and Jack, turn up
to next meeting to be induced into the Academy of People Who Don't Have The
Common Decency to Listen When You're Moderating them.

I said that I was going home to write up the meeting notes. Miloh said "Hey,
can you do it in the form of a mid-nineties cyberpunk novel this time?", and
everyone started telling me what kind of awesome character they wanted to be and what tricked out skateboard they would be riding.